Bill Barr: 'Lame duck' Trump 2.0 will be 'bent on revenge more than anything else'

In an interview with CBS, former attorney general Bill Barr dismissed another Donald Trump presidential run saying the Republican Party could do better than try to help a 78-year-old "lame duck" get back in office who is only interested in exacting revenge.

Speaking with Catherine Herridge in an interview aired on Friday night, the former Trump administration official had little good to say about his old boss who attempted to talk him into investigating 2020 presidential election fraud where none existed.

"I think the future is bright for the Republican Party. I view 2024 as setting up another 1980 where when [Ronald] Reagan won two terms and then [George H.W.] Bush won a third term. And that's what I think you really need to make America great again, you know, decisive victory and the reaction to the excesses of the progressive Democrats," the Charlotte Observer reported.

Barr went on to add, "And I think we could do that again and really achieve a decisive victory with the right candidate, but I don't think Trump is that candidate. The day he's elected he'll be a 78-year-old lame duck who is obviously bent on revenge more than anything else."

Barr also took time to address reports that the Department of Justice -- which he once headed up -- is now taking a hard look at the former president's actions surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection.

"From my standpoint, it looked to me like the department was really focusing on the lower-level people. As you know, since the election they've been going after the people who went into the Capitol," he told the CBS political analyst. "And I didn't think they were paying that much attention to the higher-ups and were sort-of leaving it to the congressional committee."

"But this suggests to me that they're taking a hard look at the group at the top, including the president and the people immediately around him who were involved in this," he elaborated.